“Slow and steady wins the race.”

But, in today’s fast paced internet world – is that still the case?  Does slow and steady still win?

I would say yes.

Over the years we have helped many, many clients increase their sales via increasing their online impact or “empire.”  I want to share with you one such story.

Two years ago we created a website and started releasing coupons on that website every month or so.

We have seen an increase in traffic every month for those two years and now we are at a 6x increase in traffic from where we started.

How?

By just being consistent in delivering content to our users.

So, if you aren’t consistent and need help, contact Fonder Consulting.

One seldom touched social marketing vertical is blog aggregators.

A blog aggregator is, at its core, a blog search engine; but instead of “spidering” for content it relies on blog writers to deliver content to it.

But, what most blog writers don’t realize is that you have to create an account and “claim” your blog in order to get good placement in searches.

So, if you have a blog then start creating and account and claiming your blog on these, top two aggregators: Technorati and Bloglines.

If you are leverage long-tail tools like blog aggregators then contact Fonder Consulting today.

To research your potential customers and find out their thoughts and opinions on various topics in your vertical market.

To do that you had to hire an expensive market research firm – wait a couple months – then find out the results.

No longer, just use Twitter.

Because Twitter community where its users share their thoughts on any subject in real-time you can do a search and find out what people are saying on topics in your vertical.

Let’s say that I am selling mattresses.  I would go to Twitter and just type in “mattress” and have a window into the thoughts of consumers on the topic of mattresses.

Oh yeah, this is in real time.

So, take a minute, and look through the Twitter “window” and see what you see.

So, you and/or your employees get serious and start writing good content for you customers.  Maybe you review a product in your service area, or maybe you give out some great tips.  You take that key word rich article and you put it on your website or blog… Then you think, is that it? 

No, that isn’t it.

You need to be Article Marketing!

Whoa, back-up, what did he just say?  “Article Marketing?”

Article Marketing simply means you write articles and you submit them to article directories for the entire community to consume.

Here are a couple article directory websites to help you get your article read by more than just the users that come to your website.

EzineArticles.com

Ezine is by far the most popular, and they are the most fanatical.  Every article that is submitted HAS to be original; that is, the article can’t exist on any other website by theirs.  This is good and bad.  The up side is the community (people on the internet) know this and know that if you have it on Ezine then it must not be total crap.  The down side is that you can’t even have it on your own website.  You have to submit to Ezine first, and once approved put it on your own website.

GoArticles.com

GoArticles is very popular and has a good following.  Their editors aren’t as fanatical, so you can have the article on your website first.  Just make sure on your website you put in the author’s name; which has to be the same as your pen-name on GoArticles.  This site is my current favorite.

ArticleBase.com

Another very popular article directory, but they have one major downside…  The links you put in your article are tagged as “no follow.”  That means the links won’t help your pagerank in the search engines.

There are many, many more article directories out there, but here are the top 10 based on popularity.

1. ezinearticles.com
2. articlesbase.com
3. buzzle.com
4. goarticles.com
5. helium.com
6. articlesnatch.com
7. articlealley.com
8. articledashboard.com
9. amazines.com
10. ideamarketers.com

If article marketing is apart of your current marketing startagy, contact Fonder Consulting and we can help you get rockin’!

Have you ever gone to a site and took one look…  Then decided to leave because you just didn’t know where to click.

I call this “click freeze” where the user just doesn’t know what to click on, so they click on the back button and leave.

How can you avoid this?  By having a clear definition of online success and filtering the user toward that successful goal.

I know we have all heard the phrase “always be closing” – well – the same thing is true on your website.  Always be funneling your user toward that close.  Keep in mind that a close on your website may not be a sale; no matter what it is – funnel, funnel, funnel.

Take this website (FonderConsulting.com), on every page we are funneling you toward our contact page.  Why?  Because our success metric is either having you call us or fill out the form.  We want to talk to you.

Homework: Go to your website (if you don’t have one, we can create a website for you) and take note of how many times and where on your site are you “closing” the user.

Here is an obvious funnel: Stop scratching your head, contact Fonder Consulting now and have us create a website that funnel in sales. Too over the top?  Maybe.

NOTE: If you want an extreme example of “click freeze” go to: HavenWorks.com

One of your sales reps has just come back from a sales call (if you don’t have sales reps, pretend) and you are in the debriefing meeting.  You are going over how the meeting went and what the outcome was; we can put these outcomes in order of most successful to least successful.

1. Has a check in hand.
2. Has a Purchase Order in hand.
3. Has a request for a quote.
4. Has a follow-up meeting.
5. Has a “call me later.”
6. Has a “don’t ever come back.”

You have to do the same thing with your website.  What is a successful user experience on your website?  If you have a website make a list (if you don’t, we can create rocking website for you).

The list might include a sale if you have an eCommerce website.  The list might include a quote request.  If you are a brick and mortar business, then success might be printing out a map to your location.  Maybe it is a phone call.  Whatever you define success as, just make sure it can be tracked.  You wouldn’t pay a sales rep who didn’t make any sales.  Why keep your website if it doesn’t produce success.

Let Fonder Consulting help you define and achieve success in your business.